consummate tact, his well-practiced flattery, and at the right moment a sudden outburst of passionate words culled from the works of Byron and Swinburne, what might he not achieve!

While a bottle of champagne was opened and cigarettes were placed on the table, York stood with his back against a heavily carved oak armoire in an attitude of carefully considered gracefulness and watched the girl with a sense of extreme triumph. The fact that she was young—very young,—not very much more than twenty,—and was generally acknowledged as having been the most beautiful débutante who had come out in New York society in many years, did not matter. He had painted her portrait and had quieted his numerous trades-people with a certain portion of the very substantial cheque which he had received, but that also did not matter. What did matter was the fact that he, himself, had proved attractive to a Vanderdyke—to the only daughter of the man whose name was known all over the world as the head of one of the richest and certainly the most exclusive family in the United States, whose house on Fifth Avenue contained art treasures which made it more notable than the houses of European royalty, and whose country places with their racing stables, their kennels, their swimming pools and tennis courts, golf courses and polo grounds were the pride of all the little eager people who write society paragraphs. It meant a good deal to the son of the man who had kept a dusty-looking antique shop with dirty windows on Fourth Avenue to be able to assure himself that he exercised enough attraction over this girl to make her run the risk of gossip in order to spend a few stolen hours from time to time in his company alone. With the use of consummate tact, his well-practiced flattery, and at the right moment a sudden outburst of passionate words culled from the works of Byron and Swinburne, what might he not achieve!

As these thoughts ran through his brain he turned to the oval glass in an Italian frame that hung on the wall and looked at himself with close examination. He certainly wore his forty-seven years admirably well. His dark, thick, wavy hair was all the more picturesque for its sprinkling of white. His high forehead lent him an air of intellectuality which was most misleading. His straight, black eyebrows and large, almond-shaped eyes gave him a Latin touch which seemed to indicate temperament. His nose, he told himself, was undoubtedly aristocratic, and his moustache—scrupulously lifted away from his lip—added to the effect of a well-shaped mouth and large white, regular teeth. There was a slit in his chin of which he had always been proud. Striking was the word that he 

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